25 September 2011

SRG is having a busy week this week! On Thursday, Andrew will be talkingabout modality in English double object constructions, at Rajesh's house,starting around 6:30pm. There will be dinner.

Then, on Saturday, Gennaro Chierchia will be visiting us at Barbara's houseat 10am. Topics of discussion are TBD, but we believe there will be coffeeand bagels.

Food at SRG: We determined last week that we like to have dinner-type foodat SRG. However, since SRG has no budget, we ask that SRG attendees whointend to eat please bring a small amount of money to pay back the foodbuyers. BYO dinner is also perfectly acceptable. Thanks!

The first Ling Club meeting is going to be Thursday, 9/29, at 6 in thelinguistics lounge. There'll be pizza.

It won't be particularly long -- we don't have any programming yet,we're just going to be talking about club ideas, organizational stuff,and all that. We can talk about better times and sexier spots formeetings, but only if you show up to this one.

Email me at jccahill@student.umass.edu about pizza preferences and anytopics you want brought up in the meeting. You obviously don't need toRSVP, but if you do, I'll have a better idea of how much pizza to getand we won't run out.

To get to the linguistics lounge after hours:

Come in Entrance A (the one on the right if you're looking at SouthCollege from the library) and head upstairs. Turn right at the top ofthe stairs. You should already have your animal sacrifice prepared atthis point for safe passage. Take the next set of stairs to the thirdfloor and go down the hallway. The lounge is at the end, most of thetime.

Some doors might be locked; I'm told they sometimes respond to sweetnothings whispered into their doorknobs.

If you can't get in, don't know where to go, or find yourself in afield of poppies instead of the linguistics lounge, my phone number's857 201 9473. You could also shout really loudly to nobody inparticular. Throwing rocks at windows is discouraged.

On Friday, September 30, at 3:30 in Machmer E-37, Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University) will present:

Title: Some parameters of epistemic and free choice indefinites

Abstract: In this talk I explore a quadrant of the system of polarity sensitiveitems, namely the existential one, that includes items like Italian 'unoqualunque' and 'un qualche', German 'irgendein', Spanish 'algun', Rumanian'vreun'. The attempt is to identify the generative matrix at the basis oftypological generalizations on the behavior of such items. The concept of'implicature' and a characterization of the ways in which implicatures may get'grammaticized' through an alternatives based semantics play a key role in thisattempt.

PHLING, a graduate student research group in philosophy and linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park, is hosting its first interdisciplinary research symposium, PHLINC (Philosophy & Linguistics Colloquium) on //events//.

We hope to bring together young researchers working on events in philosophy, linguistics and psychology. We aim to relate the discussion of events in these fields, bringing into conversation the work in ontology, logic, semantics, and perception. We will also have two invited speakers: Achille Varzi, of Columbia University, and Paul Pietroski, of the University of Maryland.

Submissions are open to graduate student researchers only. 10 students will have 30 minutes to present their work, followed by 15 minutes for round-table discussion. The symposium will take place over the weekend of the 31st of March and the 1st of April, in College Park MD. Each day, we will reserve some time for closing discussion.

We are accepting two varieties of submissions for consideration to participate in the symposium, depending on the author's preferences:

All abstracts/paper submissions will be considered by an interdisciplinary audience. Ideally, the composition of speakers will reflect in equal parts contributions from Linguistics, Philosophy, and Psychology. As the goal of the symposium is to bring together researchers with a strong focus on interdisciplinary cognitive science, reviewers will be looking for evidence in abstract/paper submissions that the author(s) are able to communicate effectively to individuals outside of their primary field.

We will be accepting abstract/paper submissions until January 7th, 2012, and final selections will be made by February 4th, 2012. Abstracts/papers should be sent to phling@umd.edu, with "Events - Abstract" or "Events - Paper" as well as your name in the title of the email.

Note that as this is a graduate student symposium, we will make special efforts to help with accommodations in College Park or Washington, D.C., and transportation to the university. Details will be provided closer to the date on our website,http://phling.umd.edu/symposia.html

Oh the places you might go - Belated kudos to alumnus Richard Schmierer, whowe recently learned was appointed US Ambassador to Oman in 2009. Afterreceiving his Ph.D. in Linguistics at UMass in 1977, Dr. Schmierer embarkedon a career in the foreign service, which has taken him to Germany, SaudiArabia, Iraq, Washington DC and now Oman. In addition to being a diplomat,he has taught at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University andis the author of the 2007 book *Iraq: Policy and Perceptions.* Next timesomeone asks what one can DO with a degree in Linguistics, point them to Dr.Schmierer's Wikipedia page!